Liverpool Banksy Destroyed-You Dirty Rat-Or Was It A Cat?

                                                     Now Here’s something to really get hacked off about.

 The Whitehouse Public House on the Corner of Duke Street Liverpool is in the Shadow of Gilbert Scott’s gigantic sandstone Cathedral and recently had become as Iconic a landmark after was claimed that the Graffiti artist Banksy hopped off a train and knocked a quick mural of a giant Rat in the dead of night on its facade. It was said this happened in 2004 and was then covered up in 2008 when Liverpool was European Capital of Culture.

The property had been left to decay and It was claimed it was to be preserved, after a repairs notice was served on the properties owners, but Liverpool is a city that is incapable of preserving anything of note these days be it old or new.

Several owners and as many promises later and the artwork has now been obliterated.

It has been hacked off with bolsters in what could be termed a savage act of vandalism by somebody who did not understand its significance and has underestimated its importance. You can see through the scaffolding it is now bare brick.

In today’s art-market it could have been worth more than the property that sold for £130,000 recently.

I smell a dirty rat aided and abetted by Liverpool City Council who need to approve repairs on a listed building of which this was one.....before they are carried out.

It seems hard to believe that you would do this without consultation to the masses.

What is the point of having a planning process?

It also opens up some interesting questions and not just why do pay a city council to preserve our heritage be it old or new, or in this case both if they let it be destroyed by property developers who do not care about Liverpool's Heritage.

Questions, questions?
If an artist paints something on other people's property without asking.
Can the owners of the property do whatever they want with it?

The public were taken by the fact that they have a Banksy in their city, but do the public have a claim over it?

I usually campaign for old things while I deal in 20th century and modern art so I would like to think I understand how people can be affected by something that touches their souls.
Art is like that and it is not for me to say what their taste should be. Young or old good art will last..........unless its in Liverpool that is.

This artwork can never be replicated you can never sum up the spirit of an original,  and destroying an original Banksy to put in its place, a copy is beyond a joke. It would be a repro.

This mural certainly was an asset to the area creating huge amounts of publicity on a national level.

Banksy has certainly touched a modern generation who are in tune with the meanings and the messages that he portrays in his art.

It warrants another question.
What is more important a listed building with a mural or the mural itself?

The owners are going to say we had no alternative and we will get someone in to daub a new one.
That will not wear with me it can never be replicated with a steady hand.
The same effect of waiting to be arrested in the dead of night is what gives graffiti art its spirit.

Like him or loathe him Banksy has created a whirlwind.
Some towns are proud to own one and recently an auction sale of a 4ft by 2ft slab of concrete with a Banksy on it, was put up for sale in a Miami auction room.

The auction was halted after a campaign by Haringey councillors.

Claire Kober, the leader of Haringey council, wrote to Arts Council England and the mayor of Miami, Tomas Regalado, to ask them to intervene to stop the sale but it appears the decision to withdraw the item came from the gallery owners in consultation with their lawyers. The FBI refused to confirm reports they were asked to investigate.
The sale was dramatically halted just moments before it was due to go under the hammer.

The Banksy had disappeared from a wall of a north London shop in mysterious circumstances After it had been daubed on a Poundland shop.
Slave Labour, a spray-painted artwork depicting a child making union flag bunting and seen as a critical social commentary on last year's diamond jubilee, was expected to sell for about $700,000 (£460,000

So while one council fights to save their Banksy in Liverpool we let them destroy ours.

So who polices Liverpool's Heritage Police. What was our leader doing.

So has the Banksy been taken off and put up for sale?

Have the owners sold it, or has it been shipped out in the dead of night to end up in America or just obliterated off the face of the earth?


Is it only Liverpool as a city that can disrespect its heritage in a manner that allows 46 listed buildings to be destroyed in the last 10 years.
This was a listed building with a famous artwork you couldn't make this up.
This combined with the fact that there are hundreds of decaying properties of architectural interest, it makes one think that consecutive administrations at Liverpool City Council don't have the ability or desire to understand our history. They just don’t care.

Then to make it worse they allow a modern landmark to be butchered in plain view with little or no consultation to the masses that pay their wages that feel this piece of modern art was done for them.

Lets Butcher a Banksy,
Now that’s real Culcha for yeh!